Systems for broadcasting information about the area that a mobile object or vehicle (in particular an automobile) is moving through are already known in the art. These known systems are able to identify the area where an automobile is actually in, and to broadcast to the vehicle the information emitted by one or several external, remote senders. The sent information can be related to tourism data, weather, traffic, and so on.
As examples of the prior art, the following patents or patent applications are cited:
WO01/18983A1 describes a “Multi-Channel Information Broadcasting System” of this type with an FM Emitter with internal memory and an SD type external expanded memory. It is multilingual and has LAN and wireless connections, but it does not suggest any positioning system device.
EP1036475, entitled “Discrimination Of Broadcast Information Depending On Location Of Receiver”, describes a system of this type, with the use of a GPS positioning system oriented to a tourism automobile. Data and information are received via Radio Frequency (RF). Information to be received is selectable by a keyboard.
EP1212740 discloses a “Portable Device Supplying Tourist Information” with some variations with respect the above patents, but it does not describe nor suggest short distance FM emission. It is described that the information resident in memory is “tele-chargeable” (GSM-GPRS). The differential value is RF emission.
The USA patent publication US20050181807 describes “Geographical Web Browser, Methods, Apparatus And Systems” and discloses reception of information related to a geographical area by means of web pages. It integrates GPS, mobile tech. and RF reception. It works on a server that establishes what information is to be transmitted.
Korean patent application KR2085747, entitled, “Real-Time/On-Demand Tourist Broadcast System Using Mobile Terminal” describes an interactive broadcasting casting based on an information provider.
As the closest prior art, CN1350373 (“Portable Automatic Tourist Guide Playback Device And Method”) can be cited, which describes a portable automatic playing device for a tourist guiding and automatic replaying method, which comprises: a GPS receiver for receiving information about the geographical coordinates corresponding to the scenic spots; a common information receiver for receiving common information about the scenic spot; a central control unit for receiving and processing information about the geographical coordinates of the scenic spots and common service information; an audio circuit for storing the scenic spot coordinate codes and the scenic spot introduction codes and replaying to the tourists.
In general, the cited documents can have a good performance and functionality, but all of them have a first drawback in that a broadcasting external system must be at the disposal of the system and users thereof at all times, this being time and resources consuming, and therefore expensive and lacking efficiency. A second drawback is that, in general, the broadcasted area-related information is “streamed” on a continuous manner, thus also affecting costs. Besides that, a repetitive, streamed message can be boring, thus influencing negatively on the perceived quality of the service.
The goal of the present invention is to provide a whole solution to all of the aforesaid drawbacks.